


Five Times McCoy Lied to Spock (and One Time He Didn't)

by therev



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5235434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Technically it's six and one but who's counting?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times McCoy Lied to Spock (and One Time He Didn't)

**That Kirk was sick.**

"You falsified cadet Kirk's illness in order to smuggle him aboard."

Spock said it to McCoy, a statement of fact, not accusation, standing in the hangar after everything, like it could possibly even matter.

"I don't know what you're talking about," McCoy said, shifted the bag over his shoulder, just glad to be on solid ground for a few days, if this tee-totaling Vulcan would let him go the hell home.

Spock stepped closer, the wind off the bay blowing his hair and McCoy's, and out behind Spock a figure in black watched them. "I think that you do."

McCoy frowned. "You really gonna ride my ass about this? After all that's happened? After your planet--" He stopped. Spock's jaw clenched and McCoy finally dropped his bag to the floor. "Look, Jim was in bio with me earlier that day, before the disciplinary hearing. He must have gotten into something he shouldn't have. You don't know him yet, but I'm telling you that kid's worst enemy is his own curiosity. Well, that and every allergen known to man."

Spock watched him for a moment longer. McCoy refused to squirm under that heavy gaze. 

"You will excuse me, then, for the accusation," Spock said at last, to McCoy's surprise. "Considering the probable outcome, the further loss which would have occurred had cadet Kirk not been aboard, I would have been astonished at such foresight on your part, at your knowing that he would be vital to the mission. In a way it is gratifying to know that it was merely coincidental."

Spock turned then to walk away before McCoy could realize he'd just been insulted, and by the time he shouted "hey" at the Commander's back, an engine fired up nearby and it could not be heard over the noise of it, or if it could be, it was ignored.

He picked up his bag, grumbling, when the figure in black approached.

"When do you stop being such a pain in the ass?" McCoy asked Ambassador Spock.

Spock smiled, those smaller, darker, kinder eyes wrinkling in the corners, so different from the younger version of himself. "That depends," he said, "on whether the question applies to all persons or simply to you, Doctor."

McCoy shook his head but couldn't help returning the smile. 

 

**That a half-truth isn't the same as a whole lie.**

The space between Starfleet Headquarters and the Enterprise in orbit above it was alive with activity. Shuttlecraft, freighters, and the equivalent of flying forklifts shuttled people, supplies, and equipment to their floating city as it had done for the past few days. McCoy didn't know why some things and some people got beamed up and others got delivered the old fashioned way, he'd just been glad to arrive without having his atoms scattered.

Five years they were going to be up here this time, and his medbay was crowded with nearly every member of his staff, checking and re-checking supplies, calibrating equipment, or chatting, which he quickly put a stop to. If you've got time to talk, you've got time to count or to fill a hypo, and if that was too much trouble then you could just get the hell out and find something to do in engineering. Lord knew those folks needed all the help they could get.

When Spock walked in, McCoy was unboxing his stash of brandy, kept under lock and key in his office. Spock's presence startled him, glass clinking against glass as he turned abruptly to face him.

"I notice that the box is labeled 'medical'. I presume that it is medicinal?" Spock asked.

"Of course."

Spock raised a brow but did not comment.

"Is that all you came for, Mr. Spock?" McCoy asked. "To harass me about possible contraband?"

"On the contrary, I require your assistance."

"What could you possibly--good God, man, what happened to you?"

"That seems an inappropriate response from a Chief Medical Officer," Spock said, holding his hand out to McCoy. It was wrapped in a green-soaked bandage.

McCoy sat him down, frowned at the bandaging and began to unravel it. "Well you surprised me. Next time warn me when you're bleeding freely, alright?" The bandaging came away to reveal an open wound across Spock's palm, still bleeding, and McCoy pressed the bandage back quickly, closed Spock's hand tightly.

"Come on, let's get you on a table. We're gonna have to get that closed up. Why didn't you talk to Chapel as soon as you came in?"

Spock's face, if possible, went even stonier. "If I may, Doctor, I would prefer treatment in the privacy of your office, and from you personally. It would be unfortunate if, at the start of such a long mission, the ship's first officer should be the first patient."

"Well some guys from supply already beat you to that, but I see your point."

"Indeed," Spock said, "the freight dock is how I received the injury."

"That's not your job, Spock. Everything on this ship can't be your responsibility." McCoy was still holding his hand, keeping pressure on the palm, and Spock just watched him.

"Alright, well," McCoy said, and released Spock and went into the other room to fetch a drape and a dermal regenerator and other supplies. Chapel watched him curiously but asked nothing.

He set Spock up at his desk, laid out the drape and offered Spock a local anesthetic.

"I've learned how sensitive…" McCoy said then redirected, "how careful Vulcans are with their hands."

"Precisely why I hoped you would perform the procedure yourself."

"You have that much confidence in me?" McCoy asked with a smirk as he cleaned the wound.

"Your record, your experience, speaks for itself."

McCoy hummed an agreement and they were quiet for a few moments, only the sound of the antibacterial spray and then the hum of the dermal regenerator.

"Have you studied much Vulcan anatomy, Doctor?" Spock asked.

"Some at the academy, of course. More since I knew I'd be doctoring one for five years."

"Is that how you learned about the sensitivity of our hands? I did not think it such common knowledge."

McCoy cleared his throat. "Well, you know." He spared a glance away from Spock's hand to Spock's face, suspicion, curiosity, all up close all at once.

"I do not know, Doctor. That is why I'm inquiring."

McCoy cleared his throat again, stalling. "Alright, well, I've got this friend."

"A Vulcan friend?"

"Yep."

"An intimate Vulcan friend?"

McCoy frowned at the skin he was knitting together, only glancing up for an instant and then away again when his cheeks went hot.

"Not that it's any of your goddamned business, but no."

Spock leaned back. McCoy hadn't noticed that he'd moved in so close.

"My apologies," Spock said. "As you already have a Vulcan acquaintance you will know that we possess great curiosity and are not restricted by the same cultural etiquette which precludes such inquiries."

"Yeah, well," McCoy grumbled, "you might wanna work on that," then finished putting Spock back together.

 

**That he doesn't need a Vulcan to teach him about friendship.**

Outside the diner window the street lights flashed yellow, lighting up the wet sidewalks, ticking away the seconds, punctuated by car horns and the slide of tires on wet New York streets.

Spock sat across from him in the booth. Jim had been sitting there, too, shoulder to shoulder with his second-in-command, as they had been for weeks in this old world. Then Jim had stood and left them. Spock had asked to where. Only to the wash room, Jim had replied.

McCoy watched the traffic. Spock watched McCoy, that stupid knitted cap on his head.

"Doctor," Spock said.

"I don't want to hear it again, Spock."

"Edith Keeler--"

"I don't want to hear it! Can't you understand why? I don't care if she was a nazi herself. I don't care if she was the goddamned devil. I don't want you to rationalize it to me."

"You need to understand," Spock said, and touched McCoy's hand across the table. It made McCoy look at him at last and for the first time McCoy saw something he recognized behind those impassive eyes. "For Jim," Spock continued. "He needs you to understand."

McCoy swallowed and pulled his hand away and said nothing.

In a little while Jim returned, eyes red. He avoided McCoy and ordered another coffee and they waited until the time that Spock had said they should be able to return to their own time.

Later, on the street, in the rain, waiting for a theoretical, invisible portal, McCoy said to Jim, "You had to, I know. It was for the best." Jim nodded, watching the sidewalk.

McCoy caught Spock watching him, a green flush high in his cheeks from the cold rain.

On the ship, in their own time again, McCoy cornered Spock even before their hair had dried. McCoy felt like he'd never shake off the damp. 

"That wasn't for you," he said. "I mean, it wasn't because of you, me squaring things with Jim."

Spock frowned, or continued frowning, McCoy couldn't tell. His lips were pink and turned down and he watched McCoy keenly through long, dark lashes.

"Of course not, Doctor. Given my lack of emotional understanding and your expertise in the same, it would be illogical to think so," Spock said, then shook out of McCoy's grip. He hadn't even realized he had held Spock by the arm. 

 

**That he knew nothing about Pon Farr.**

Sweat beaded on Spock's brow, his upper lip. His heart rate was elevated. He was feverish. He panted like a canine in labor.

"I still can't pinpoint a cause for the fever," McCoy said softly, quietly even though the medbay had been cleared for this examination. It was the only way he could get Spock to agree to it. "There's nothing in any official literature like it. But based on my scans and what I've found in your blood, I've synthesized this serum. It should alleviate the effects."

McCoy offered the hypo filled with a bluish fluid and Spock sneered at it. McCoy expected him to slap it out of his hands.

"Your potions are useless, Doctor," he said with a hint of warning, gripping the table. McCoy watched his blood pressure climb dangerously high then settle.

"Trust me, Spock," McCoy said and reached out, but dropped his hand when Spock's lip curled in disgust or something else. "You trusted me once before."

Spock wouldn't look at him, but after a stubbornly long silence, he nodded.

"You might want to self-administer," McCoy suggested. "Perhaps in your quarters. Alone. I believe you may experience some, uh... euphoric effects."

Spock's brow furrowed and something like a laugh slipped from between those fevered lips. "Please proceed, Doctor, or cease to annoy me with your medieval--"

Spock stopped speaking as McCoy stabbed him in the thigh with the hypo, the spraying sound loud in the empty room. Spock's eyes widened in surprise, anger, betrayal, and the monitors all spiked, some of them into their alarm modes, and then Spock's eyes slid closed, his mouth opened in a surprised "o", and though he made no sound McCoy recognized an orgasm when he saw one. He moved to the monitors, pressed a few buttons to disarm the alarms, then watched as they all normalized over a few moments and Spock's panting behind him went from desperate to somewhat less so.

He filled a couple more hypos with his back still to Spock, and when he could no longer avoid it he returned to Spock's side. 

It was Spock now who was unwilling to meet his gaze, his cheeks mottled green and his hands folded discreetly in his lap.

"Looks like that's doing the trick," McCoy said and handed him the extra hypos. "Do that once a day for the next few days, or as needed until symptoms abate."

"Thank you, Doctor," Spock murmured and said nothing else.

In his office, McCoy contacted Ambassador Spock.

"It worked, and if he thought I knew more than I was telling, he didn't ask."

"No," Spock said, smiling gently, "he would not." Then, after a moment. "Were you there? Or did he self-administer the drug?"

McCoy took a sip of brandy, rubbed the back of his head. "I told him to but he wouldn't listen."

Spock only raised a knowing brow.

"You'd make a killing on this stuff commercially," McCoy said so that he wouldn't have to explain what he saw or admit to himself how it had affected him. 

"The serum is only effective for Vulcans and only during this time."

McCoy nodded. He had expected as much from the chemical make-up. "It's too bad this couldn't have happened while he was still with Uhura. Could have saved him the embarrassment."

Spock laughed. McCoy always felt satisfied to hear it. "Trust me when I say that this version of events is infinitely preferable to the first."

"You might have to tell me that story some time."

"Some things are best left in the past," Spock said, smiling. "Or, in the alternate past, as it were." After McCoy laughed Spock asked if McCoy would have really preferred to spare Spock the embarrassment.

"Of course. I don't hate him. He's you. Kind of. And I like you." He cleared his throat awkwardly when Spock only watched him fondly. "Anyway, sometimes there's no pain worse than the pain of embarrassment, and that's my job. To take away the pain, or to stop it from happening in the first place, if I can."

 

**That Jim was going to be okay.**

It was a beautiful planet. The deadliest ones often were. The sky showed pink-purple, the distant primary shining a warm rose color, never seeming to move on the horizon. Flowering trees flourished in the temperate climate and the people of this world were a strange, pale yellow, almost aglow in the constant evening light.

McCoy knelt in sweet-smelling grass. Jim lay beneath his hands, his belly a shocking red against the pastels.

"Where's our goddamn beam-up, Spock?" he shouted, and the few native people who had gathered around all stepped back, as if they'd never heard shouting before.

"Spock to Enterprise… Enterprise this is Commander Spock, do you read?" Spock said, standing over Jim like it wasn't too late to protect him. "Communications are lost, Doctor."

McCoy kept pressure on Jim's abdomen, blood seeping up between his fingers. "Then send up a fucking flare, I don't care what you do."

Spock was already aiming his phaser, pointed up, and fired an emergency flare into the atmosphere. Moments passed as it soared higher, then a near-blinding light turned the pink world white in a flash, then another, and a third, as the natives all scattered in a panic.

"They will be scanning the surface and should send a shuttlecraft soon," Spock said and knelt beside McCoy.

"That may take too long," McCoy said. "Here, take this for me. Apply pressure but _don't move the projectile_ , got it?"

Spock placed his hands over McCoy's and McCoy slowly slid his away, slick with blood, the scanner slippery in his hands when he pulled it out. Jim's pulse was weak, blood pressure low. He was pale. McCoy didn't know how much of it was blood loss and how much was the poison that the plant injected when it shot a ten inch spike into their Captain's abdomen. McCoy dosed him with an anti-venom and an antihistamine, just to cover his bases.

There was some static on Spock's communicator. It was unintelligible but it was clearly Sulu and McCoy took that as a good sign, except that the noise or something else brought Jim back to consciousness.

Jim groaned even before his eyes opened, red and fever bright and panicked. He gasped for air and mumbled, rambling nonsense. Probably some kind of hallucinogen. He started to writhe, to kick his legs, to try to push Spock away.

"Doctor," Spock said as they held Jim down.

"I can't give him a sedative; it's too dangerous right now."

"If you will apply pressure," Spock suggested and McCoy understood the rest. He slid his hands over Spock's and Spock pulled his away, then touched Jim's face, smearing blood over psi points as Jim's panic increased, then leveled. His thrashing slowed and stopped. After a moment, he slept.

They waited, until McCoy's hands began to ache and Spock's fingers resting on Jim's psi points seemed more like a caress, his gaze on Jim just as gentle and intimate. McCoy felt like an intruder.

"He is fading, Doctor," Spock said, voice too soft and already grieving.

McCoy knew that of course. There was barely a pulse beneath his hands anymore. If they weren't on the ship soon, they would lose him.

"Oh really, Doctor?" McCoy said with forced irritation. "Why don't you give me another expert opinion."

Spock looked up at him, confusion and maybe anger on his face.

"Don't start the wailing and breast-beating just yet," McCoy continued, "or whatever constitutes histrionics on Vulcan. Jim's going to be fine."

Spock didn't nod or frown or give any indication other than a stony face and to turn back to Jim, and McCoy thought at one point that he heard a low murmuring but he couldn't be certain if it was Jim or Spock.

A few moments later, the shadow of the shuttlecraft moved over them, and on the craft was a med crew and a regenerator and plasma.

Hours later, McCoy woke to a hand on his back. He'd fallen asleep in a chair in medbay, arms folded over Jim's bedside and the hand on his back was Spock's. They were alone, even though McCoy knew Christine was around somewhere.

"He is waking, Doctor," Spock said, quiet in the low light of the simulated nighttime and McCoy shot out of his chair. His back ached but Spock's hand was still there.

McCoy checked the monitors. All steady but no sign of consciousness.

"How do you know--" he began to ask, but then Jim made a sound, scrunched his face up like McCoy had seen him do a thousand times when he didn't really want to wake up but knew there was a class to get to, or a ship to command.

"Ugh," Jim said, and McCoy laughed. The hand on his back was gone but Spock was still there, close, and when McCoy turned to him and hugged him, he didn't hug back, but he didn't step away either.

"Told you so," McCoy said, when he released Spock and stood back and Spock's eyes were too familiar, if too young.

"Told me what?" Jim asked.

"About smelling the flowers on alien planets, you jackass," McCoy said, even though he hadn't been talking to Jim.

 

**That he really didn't care.**

The room was overly warm and Spock's mouth was hot on his throat. There was a smell of incense and Spock, when McCoy kissed him, tasted like chocolate. 

McCoy pushed forward, back arching away from the door of Spock's quarters, seeking friction, any, and finding Spock's hardness.

They broke the kiss and sighed together until McCoy moaned a curse as Spock palmed his cock through his pants.

"I can't believe…" McCoy said, and when he said nothing else Spock kissed him again and McCoy cupped Spock's erection through his dress uniform slacks, soft over hard flesh and Spock shivered like he might have been cold.

"What do you find unbelievable, Doctor?" Spock asked when their mouths parted, then bit McCoy's lip like he didn't really expect an answer.

"Right now? Everything."

"May I?" Spock asked, hands pausing at McCoy's waistband. 

"Yeah, anything. Anything, Spock, fuck."

Spock's palm was silky soft against his dick, long-fingered and clever and hot. Jesus, whatever happened to lower Vulcan body temperatures? Spock was on fire.

"Can I?" McCoy asked, though he was already unfastening Spock's pants and Spock answered with a quiet 'please' that was almost too much to bear.

Dress pants and starfleet issue underwear and Spock's cock was just as hot, maybe hotter than his hands and Spock leaned forward and rested his forehead against McCoy's shoulder and sighed. 

For a few moments there was only the sound of flesh on flesh, of panting and the occasional "ah", rhythmic, frantic.

"Wait, wait," McCoy said and Spock actually growled. "Here," McCoy said, and pushed Spock away, but only to pull Spock's shirt off and Spock tried to help until they were a tangle of dress blues and kicking off pants and shoes and neither of them cared that they were still wearing socks and Spock, when he stood naked, was flushed green and pink-brown and covered in dark hair that McCoy ran his hand through over his chest. His fingers were already sticky wet with Spock's precome.

Spock kissed him hard, still tasting sweet and a little like cocoa and fruit and when Spock touched McCoy's cock again McCoy moaned into his mouth. 

McCoy had ideas. He had had them often but now they were actually possible. They involved Spock in his mouth, Spock penetrating him from behind, Spock hovering over him and teasing him until he begged. But instead they stood there against the door and jerked each other off and came on each other's bellies and that was pretty good, too.

"Merry Christmas," McCoy said and laughed against Spock's throat, his shoulder, as they caught their breath.

After a moment, Spock pulled away and left him there, but returned with warm, wet cloths and they cleaned themselves up and Spock picked up their clothing and folded it as McCoy sat on Spock's bed, about as firm as a bed could be and not actually be a floor.

"Leave that," he said. "C'mere."

Spock did so but only after he finished picking up their clothing. He stood before where McCoy sat and looked down that nose at him and McCoy would have been annoyed, maybe he was, but he reached out anyway and pulled Spock closer and kissed his hip and Spock put a hand in his hair. By the time McCoy kissed his way to the other hip, Spock was hard again and McCoy ticked another box off of his list of ideas.

Later, only a little while later, Spock lay next to McCoy and asked if the doctor was still in disbelief.

"In a way, yeah."

"Clarify," Spock said.

McCoy lay on his back, speaking to the ceiling. It was easier that way.

"Well you have to admit it's surprising," he said, and Spock was quiet. "Us, I mean."

There was a noise, an almost silent click and the environmental controls began pumping in even more heated air, adding to the warmth of the room and the overall hum of the ship.

"Us?" Spock said.

"Yeah… this." 

McCoy shifted on the hard bed. He didn't really think it was a difficult concept.

"How would you define 'this', Doctor?" Spock said in a way that McCoy didn't like even more than he disliked most things that Spock said. He finally turned to look at him, but Spock's cold eyes told him nothing.

McCoy sat up, scrubbed at his face. Two decks above them half of the crew, most of whom didn't even celebrate Christmas, was probably still drinking and dancing and stuffing themselves to the sounds of old carols no one ever remembered the words to and hoping not to end up in their quarters alone. 

McCoy sat there and counted to three. When he stood and turned to Spock he smiled.

"A good time, that's how I'd define it, Mr. Spock. A goddamn Christmas miracle, maybe." He reached for his pants and pulled them on, then his shirt and stuffed his underwear into a pocket as an afterthought. Spock sat up and watched all of this.

"I have upset you," Spock said, so genuinely, gently, and even with a little surprise that McCoy almost decided to stay. 

"Not really. I'd have to give a damn for you to upset me." McCoy pulled on one boot and then the other and then Spock was standing there. 

"Doctor," he said, and waited, then, "It would be logical for you to tell what I have done or said incorrectly, particularly as it is usually an exercise that you enjoy."

McCoy tried to smile, tried to be a smart ass, especially since Spock was standing there naked with his hair actually out of place. But maybe that's why he couldn't, and maybe because it was Christmas and he thought he'd give himself a gift, he leaned forward and kissed Spock, and then said goodnight.

In his quarters, McCoy poured himself another brandy and it was late on the ship but it wasn't on New Vulcan.

"You look unwell, Doctor," Ambassador Spock said, and there was just enough concern in it, the voice just familiar enough, that something twisted in McCoy's gut.

"You Spocks sure know how to kick a guy when he's down. Or up. All of the time, actually."

The Ambassador sat a little closer to the vid comm. "Has there been an incident with my younger self, Doctor?"

"You could call it that."

"Could you elaborate?"

McCoy smiled, put his feet up on his desk and took another sip of brandy.

"Well I could, but I'm a gentleman."

Ambassador Spock raised an eyebrow. "I see," was all that he said.

"Aren't you surprised at all?"

The Ambassador shrugged. "Not really."

The door snicked open behind McCoy. He thought that he had locked it, but then he had thought a lot of things that were apparently wrong.

"Why have you contacted the Ambassador?" Spock asked, and then greeted the screen. "Good evening, Ambassador," Spock said.

"Good evening," Spock said.

McCoy stood. "We're old friends. What do you want?"

Spock looked unwilling to speak. His cheeks were still that fetching mix of mottled pink and green. "Could we discuss this alone?"

"He's you, Spock, he can hear whatever you've got to say."

"That is not technically true, Doctor," both Spocks said and McCoy rolled his eyes. Then Spock, the younger one, took McCoy by the arm, turned him a little and stepped between the vid comm and McCoy. He spoke quietly.

"Doctor, I believe that there was some miscommunication and as you are too… reluctant," he meant 'stubborn', McCoy knew, "to name the misunderstanding, I feel it necessary to outline all that are possible and to address them individually."

"This may take a while," the Ambassador said over his shoulder. "Perhaps you should just tell him the truth, Leonard."

There was a flicker across Spock's face as the Ambassador used McCoy's first name.

"You stay out of this, old man," McCoy said.

"The Ambassador has a point," Spock said, still holding McCoy by the arm.

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was four soft, brown eyes watching him, maybe it was Spock's hand warm through his dress blues and a memory of what that skin felt like against his.

"I was…" McCoy said but his voice was rough and he cleared his throat. "I didn't want that to be a one time thing. Or even a many times thing without… dammit, Spock, you should know this already. You're a goddamn telepath."

Spock narrowed his eyes and the hand on McCoy's arm tightened. 

"I do…," Spock said, rather slowly. "I do know, Doctor, and I feel the same."

"He means that he loves you," Ambassador Spock said in the silence that followed.

"I believe I just said that," Spock said over his shoulder, so dryly that McCoy had to laugh, as much from disbelief as anything else, but Spock's eyes sparkled with something that, for once, wasn't annoyance, and McCoy wanted to lean in and kiss him.

"Wait," McCoy said before he did so, addressing the Ambassador. He stepped nearer to the vid comm. "Is this what happened in your time? Your universe? The two of us?"

Ambassador Spock blinked a few times and considered the question. "Any answer may interfere with the natural progression of your current timeline."

"He means yes," Spock said, and the Ambassador only arched a brow and cut the comm link. The screen went black. 

In the reflection in the glass, McCoy saw his own face, and leaning over his shoulder, Spock.

"Commander," McCoy said when he turned and straightened and found himself in Spock's space.

"Doctor," Spock said.

McCoy thought. "What are you doing for New Year's?"


End file.
